Vintage jewellery designer popular with Kate Moss fined £2,000 for selling illegal big cat claws

• June 2015
• By Tess De La Mare

Annina Vogel was spotted selling antique Victorian panther, leopard and lynx claws by a customer at her shop in Liberty's department store

Central News / Splash News

Annina Vogel: The fashion designer, whose customers include Kate Moss, was fined for selling illegal big cat claws

A vintage jewellery designer popular with Kate Moss was fined £2000 after she was caught selling illegal big cat claws from her shop in Liberty’s department store.
Annina Vogel was spotted selling antique Victorian panther, leopard and lynx claws by a customer on 12 December 2013.
The customer became concerned when she heard the sales rep refer to 14 items as ‘tiger claws’ and Vogel’s company was referred to the council’s senior trading standards officer.
When she was investigated it was found she had removed all the cats’ claws from display.
They were a mixture of panther, lynx and leopard - all animals subject to endangered species regulations.

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Fined: Annina Vogel at Westminster Magistrates' Court

It took more than a year for Vogel to be charged while the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs analysed the claws.
Vogel, who appeared in court on behalf of her company, said she had quit a job in the media to follow in her mother’s footsteps as an antiques jewellery dealer.
On her website it says she’s been collecting jewellery since she was a little girl, and is ‘obsessed with gold charms’.
It adds: ‘Her mother dealt in antique jewellery, specialising in Bakelite and costume, so Annina grew up surrounded by inspiration.’
‘Whether it was the luck of the Irish or all the horseshoe charms she was wearing one will never know, but Annina’s hobby grew rapidly and word spread quickly, first Vogue called, then Kate Moss called and then there was no turning back.’
She told Westminster Magistrates’ Court she had no idea what she was doing was illegal because all the claws were antiques.

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Mixture: Vogel was spotted selling lynx, panther and leopard claws

Andrew Banks, for Annina Vogel Limited, said: ‘Ignorance of the law is of course no excuse, but in this case it is strong mitigation.
‘The regulation in relation to the management of the sale or the offering for sale of parts or whole endangered species are very complicated.
‘There are very few people in the country who have a good working knowledge of what is required.’
He added that the law had changed in 2012 making it illegal to sell products from endangered species killed before the endangered species act came into force.
Mr Banks said: ‘There was a press release that was posted on the government website saying that there was a new classification for worked items.
‘It was then taken down because the guidelines because traders found them very confusing, and a message was posted saying fresh guidance would be published.
‘Two years later and there is no new guidance.’
He told the court Vogel has been prescribed diazepam to deal with the stress of the court case.
‘She just wants to get it over and done with because she can’t take the stress anymore.’

Tiger claw: A close up of one of the endangered animal claws

Fining her £2,000, chair of the bench Diane Lenna said: ‘We have acknowledge your early guilty plea.
‘We accept that they were antique in origin and we accept that the government guidance was unclear and you withdrew the items for sale immediately.’
Vogel, of Lambolle Road, Camden, admitted prohibited offering for sale of a specimen.
She was also ordered to pay £205 costs. ends

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